In the midst of the popularity which greeted the appearance of the work of Sebastian Brandt, it attracted the special attention of a celebrated preacher of the time named Johann Geiler. Geiler was born at Schaffhausen, in Switzerland, in 1445, but having lost his father when only three years of age, he was educated by his grandfather, who lived at Keysersberg, in Alsace, and hence he was commonly called Geiler of Keysersberg. He studied in Freiburg and Bâle, obtained a great reputation for learning, was esteemed a profound theologian, and was finally settled in Strasburg, where he continued to shine as a preacher until his death in 1510. He was a bold man, too, in the cause of truth, and declaimed with earnest zeal against the corruptions of the church, and especially against the monkish orders, for he compared the black monks to the devil, the white monks to his dam, and the others he said were their chickens. On another occasion he said that the qualities of a good monk were an almighty belly, an ass’s back, and a raven’s mouth. He told his congregation from the pulpit that a great reformation was at hand, that he did not expect to live to see it himself, but that many of those who heard him would live to see it. As may be supposed, the monks hated him, and spoke of him with contempt. They said, that in his sermons he took his texts, not from the Scriptures, but from the “Ship of Fools” of Sebastian Brandt; and, in fact, during the year 1498, Geiler preached at Strasburg a series of sermons on the follies of his time, which were evidently founded upon Brandt’s book, for the various follies were taken in the same order. They were originally compiled in German, but one of Geiler’s scholars, Jacob Other, translated them into Latin, and published them, in 1501, under the title of “Navicula sive Speculum Fatuorum præstantissimi sacrarum literarum doctoris Johannis Geiler.” Within a few years this work went through several editions both in Latin and in German, some of them illustrated by woodcuts. The style of preaching is quaint and curious, full of satirical wit, which is often coarse, according to the manner of the time, sometimes very indelicate. Each sermon is headed by the motto, “Stultorum infinitus est numerus.” Geiler takes for his theme in each sermon one of the titles of Brandt’s “Ship of Fools,” and he separates them into subdivisions, or branches, which he calls the bells (nolas) from the fool’s-cap.
The other scholar who did most to spread the knowledge of Brandt’s work, was Jodocus Badius, who assumed the additional name of Ascensius because he was born at Assen, near Brussels, in 1462. He was a very distinguished scholar, but is best known for having established a celebrated printing establishment in Paris, where he died in 1535. I have already stated that Badius edited the Latin translation of the “Ship of Fools” of Sebastian Brandt, with additional explanations of his own, but he was one of the first of Brandt’s imitators. He seems to have thought that Brandt’s book was not complete—that the weaker sex had not received its fair share of importance; and apparently in 1498, while Geiler was turning the “Stultifera Navis” into sermons, Badius compiled a sort of supplement to it (additamentum), to which he gave the title of “Stultiferæ naviculæ, seu Scaphæ, Fatuarum Mulierum,” the Boats of Foolish Women. As far as can be traced, the first edition appears to have been printed in 1502. The first cut represents the ship carrying Eve alone of the female race, whose folly involved the whole world. The book is divided into five chapters, according to the number of the five senses, each sense represented by a boat carrying its particular class of foolish women to the great ship of foolish women, which lies off at anchor. The text consists of a dissertation on the use and abuse of the particular sense which forms the substance of the chapter, and it ends with Latin verses, which are given as the boatman’s celeusma, or boat song. The first of these boats is the scapha stultæ visionis ad stultiferam navem perveniens—the boat of foolish seeing proceeding to the ship of fools. A party of gay ladies are taking possession of the boat, carrying with them their combs, looking-glasses, and all other implements necessary for making them fair to be looked upon. The second boat is the scapha auditionis fatuæ, the boat of foolish hearing, in which the ladies are playing upon musical instruments. The third is the scapha olfactionis stultæ, the boat of foolish smell, and the pictorial illustration to it is partly copied in our cut No. 136. In the original some of the ladies are gathering sweet-smelling flowers before they enter the boat, while on board a pedlar is vending his perfume. One folle femme, with her fool’s cap on her head, is buying a pomander, or, as we should perhaps now say, a scent-ball, from the itinerant dealer. Figures of pomanders are extremely rare, and this is an interesting example; in fact, it is only recently that our Shakspearian critics really understood the meaning of the word. A pomander was a small globular vessel, perforated with holes, and filled with strong perfumes, as it is represented in our woodcut. The fourth of these boats is that of foolish tasting, scapha gustationis fatuæ, and the ladies have their well-furnished table on board the boat, and are largely indulging in eating and drinking. In the last of these boats, the scapha contactionis fatuæ, or boat of foolish feeling, the women have men on board, and are proceeding to great liberties with them; one of the gentle damsels, too, is picking the pocket of her male companion in a very unlady-like manner.
No. 136. The Boat of Pleasant Odours.
Two ideas combined in this peculiar field of satiric literature, that of the ship and that of the fools, now became popular, and gave rise to a host of imitators. There appeared ships of health, ships of penitence, ships of all sorts of things, on the one hand; and on the other, folly was a favourite theme of satire from many quarters. One of the most remarkable of the personages involved in this latter warfare, was the great scholar Desiderius Erasmus, of Rotterdam, who was born in that city in 1467. Like most of these satirists, Erasmus was strongly imbued with the spirit of the Reformation, and he was the acquaintance and friend of those to whom the Reformation owed a great part of its success. In 1497, when the “Ship of Fools” of Sebastian Brandt was in the first full flush of its popularity, Erasmus came to England, and was so well received, that from that time forward his literary life seemed more identified with our island than with any other country. His name is still a sort of household word in our universities, especially in that of Cambridge. He made here the friendly acquaintance of the great Sir Thomas More, himself a lover of mirth, and one of those whose names are celebrated for having kept a court fool. In the earlier years of the sixteenth century, Erasmus visited Italy, and passed two or three years there. He returned thence to England, as appears, early in the year 1508. It is not easy to decide whether his experience of society in Italy had convinced him more than ever that folly was the presiding genius of mankind, or what other feeling influenced him, but one of the first results of his voyage was the Μωρίας Ἐγκώμιον (Moriæ Encomium), or “Praise of Folly.” Erasmus dedicated this little jocular treatise to Sir Thomas More as a sort of pun upon his name, although he protests that there was a great contrast between the two characters. Erasmus takes much the same view of folly as Brandt, Geiler, Badius, and the others, and under this name he writes a bold satire on the whole frame of contemporary society. The satire is placed in the mouth of Folly herself (the Mère Folie of the jocular clubs), who delivers from her pulpit a declamation in which she sets forth her qualities and praises. She boasts of the greatness of her origin, claims as her kindred the sophists, rhetoricians, and many of the pretentious scholars and wise men, and describes her birth and education. She claims divine affinity, and boasts of her influence over the world, and of the beneficent manner in which it was exercised. All the world, she pretends, was ruled under her auspices, and it was only in her presence that mankind was really happy. Hence the happiest ages of man are infancy, before wisdom has come to interfere, and old age, when it has passed away. Therefore, she says, if men would remain faithful to her, and avoid wisdom altogether, they would pass a life of perpetual youth. In this long discourse of the influence of folly, written by a man of the known sentiments of Erasmus, it would be strange if the Romish church, with its monks and ignorant priesthood, its saints, and relics, and miracles, did not find a place. Erasmus intimates that the superstitious follies had become permanent, because they were profitable. There are some, he tells us, who cherished the foolish yet pleasant persuasion, that if they fixed their eyes devoutly on a figure of St. Christopher, carved in wood or painted on the wall, they would be safe from death on that day; with many other examples of equal credulity. Then there are your pardons, your measures of purgatory, which may be bought off at so much the hour, or the day, or the month, and a multitude of other absurdities. Ecclesiastics, scholars, mathematicians, philosophers, all come in for their share of the refined satire of this book, which, like the “Ship of Fools,” has gone through innumerable editions, and has been translated into many languages.
No. 137. Superstition.
In an early French translation, the text of this work of Erasmus is embellished with some of the woodcuts belonging to Brandt’s “Ship of Fools,” which, it need hardly be remarked, are altogether inappropriate, but the “Praise of Folly” was detained to receive illustrations from a more distinguished pencil. A copy of the book came into the hands of Hans Holbein—it may possibly have been presented to him by the author—and Holbein took so much interest in it, that he amused himself with drawing illustrative sketches with a pen in the margins. This book afterwards passed into the library of the University of Bâle, where it was found in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and these drawings have since been engraved and added to most of the subsequent editions. Many of these sketches are very slight, and some have not a very close connection with the text of Erasmus, but they are all characteristic, and show the spirit—the spirit of the age—in which Holbein read his author. I give two examples of them, taken almost haphazard, for it would require a longer analysis of the book than can be given here to make many of them understood. The first of these, our cut No. 137, represents the foolish warrior, who has a sword long enough to trust to it for defence, bowing with trembling superstition before a painting of St. Christopher crossing the water with the infant Christ on his shoulder, as a more certain security for his safety during that day. The other, our cut No. 138, represents the preacher, Lady Folly, descending from her pulpit, after she has concluded her sermon.
No. 138. Preacher Folly ending her Sermon.